


The best revenge

by Balrog_Roike



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Hood: Lost Days, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Cass and Jason met in No Man's Land, Cass has a plan, it changes things, it works out surprisingly well, she is going to save Jason and Jason is going to save everybody else, what if
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-20 10:42:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14259228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balrog_Roike/pseuds/Balrog_Roike
Summary: These are the things Cass knows: “The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do.”Jason doesn’t know this. Yet.Cass will make sure that he will learn though.After all, he’s the kindest, brightest and wisest person she’s ever met…/he’s the loneliest, saddest and most damaged person she's ever met…Or: Cass meets a lonely boy in No Man’s Land. A lonely boy who screams without ever making a sound. A year later she meets the boy again, speaking by now – but still silently screaming all the time. Cass is determined to fix that.





	1. Timeline

**Author's Note:**

> "Living well is the best revenge" – George Herbert
> 
> “The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do.” - Anonymous 
> 
> This first chapter contains a rough timeline I managed to cobble together after fruitlessly searching for a definite one on the web.  
> So far the only major change is the time of Jason's resurrection (after 1 year instead of 6 months) to get him into Gotham during No Man's Land. 
> 
> More changes will follow and the timeline will be updated with each new story arc (so far there are six planned).

**Year 7 of Batman's War on Crime**

**Major Events: The Killing Joke**

**Ages:**

Bruce: 31  
Barbara: 20  
Dick: 18  
Jason: 15

**Year 8 of Batman's War on Crime  **

**Major Events: A Death in the Family – Tim Drake's first appearance – Barbara becomes Oracle -** _Jason should have come back to life_ **  
**

**Ages:**

Bruce: 32  
Barbara: 21  
Dick: 19  
Jason: 15 (dead)  
Tim: 12

**Year 9 of Batman's War on Crime**

**Major Events: Tim becomes Robin – Spoiler's first appearance – Knightfall begins and ends - Jason comes back to life sometime in autumn**

**Ages:**

Bruce: 33  
Barbara: 22  
Dick: 20  
Jason: 15  
Tim: 13  
Stephanie: 14

** Year 10  of Batman's War on Crime **

**Major Events: Cataclysm – No Man’s Land begins – Cass and Jason meet - Jason vanishes**

**Ages:**

Bruce: 34  
Barbara: 23  
Dick: 21  
Jason: 16  
Cassandra: 16  
Tim: 14  
Stephanie: 15

** Year 11 of Batman's War on Crime **

**Major Events: Cassandra becomes Batgirl - No Man’s Land ends - Arc I \- Arc II begins \- training with Lady Shiva - Red Hood: The Lost Days -  Cass meets Steph for the first time - the government hunts for Cass - Red Hood: The Lost Days continues - Hush - Death and the Maidens  
**

Bruce: 35  
Barbara: 24  
Dick: 22  
Jason: 17  
Cassandra: 17  
Tim: 15  
Stephanie: 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow I seem to remember Steph being one year (or at least enough months for it to count) older than Tim. If this is wrong, feel free to correct me.
> 
> (Same goes for any mistakes.)


	2. Arc I - He sees only night, and hears only silence.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass has experienced many firsts in Gotham. Time for one more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “He sees only night, and hears only silence.” – Jacques Delille, Imagination, IV
> 
> Unfortunately no beta. Please tell me if you see any mistakes.

Since Cass had first arrived in Gotham, her life had been filled with experiencing new things. The words she’d been gifted or cursed with – she leaned toward ‘gifted’ most of the time, unless she found herself painfully thrown back on her ass and therefore undeserving to be the persona she had worked so hard to earn the right to call her own yet again – seemed most important at first glance and the other bats certainly seemed to think so, but Cass herself knew of other ‘firsts’ that were equally if not even more important and if only to her, even if only now she was able to actually name them.

‘Home’ was a first for her, given that she’d drifted from city to city, country to country, continent to continent for most of her life. Cass had been used to life on the run, on the streets, to live from meal to meal and nothing but hardship in between. Rootless as she was, she’d been constantly on the move, even when she’d long since lost her father or anybody else who might have been on her trail, until the day it had proven actually harder to leave Gotham than to simply stay.

‘Acquaintances’, ‘Friends’, ‘Family’. There were so many words for so many different types of bonds between people and Cass’ head spun whenever she thought about them. The names were there but the feelings and nuances behind them escaped her. She tried to understand how complex these words and bonds were for other people, but more often than not she failed or misinterpreted things that seemed so simple for her. She lost Azrael to himself and couldn’t understand, had no idea why he gave up something that mattered so much to her and felt as if he had to give up their friendship right alongside it. She watched Nightwing and Barbara move in their private little dance and Cass _knew_ that they liked and just how much they meant to each other and yet they acted differently on that simple truth every time, because it was ‘complicated’. And Batman, with his ever changing actions and reactions and yet constant deep well of affection simply confused her.

‘Purpose’, another first, a difficult word that she tried to mouth to herself when nobody else was looking. ‘Duty’ and ‘Calling’ were woven tightly into it, and Batman loved to hear and speak these words again and again. Cass felt what he felt when he said them, she was sure, and yet she didn’t know how to tell him that for her being Batgirl was more than that, that it was her one chance to be more than the murderer her father had made her. Batgirl was something special that seemed to wipe her past simply away some days. She could help people and save them and for the first time in her life her skills were actually cherished and appreciated. She had the chance to actually _be_ somebody worth of existing.

But now, now those skills were gone.

Cass knew that Batman was ready to help and that Barbara was willing to give her a home for however long it would take to regain them, but for Cass that just wasn’t enough. She needed her skills back now, while their loss was still fresh, before this all-encompassing feeling of ‘uselessness’ filled all the dark and hidden places inside of her that had been feeling hollow since she’d first killed a man.

It wasn’t just that she couldn’t be Batgirl as long as she wasn’t able to fight or that Cass was scared that she might lose all her firsts, all her newfound bonds and connections right along with that name – as Azrael had – but what tormented her was something that seemed to be incomprehensible to anybody but her.

She had no idea how to exist like this.

Yes, she had words now to understand, and she loved how they seemed to change the world surrounding her and made her think new things, but these words existed as lists upon lists upon lists in her head, names and definitions in a complete vacuum, without any actual experiences behind them. She listened to somebody speak and she _knew_ what they said – but she had no idea how they meant it. Did they speak the truth or did they lie, were they happy or sad, was there a problem or everything alright…

She wasn’t completely unable to read other people, the strongest emotions still shone through, but it was nothing in comparison to what she was used to and it made Cass feel deaf and numb and blind, cut off from the world with all her senses instead of just this particular one.

And it didn’t help that she was still functionally mute, thanks to a mouth and tongue and throat unused to shape the sounds she could now finally make sense of.

It reminded Cass painfully of a boy she’d met back in No Man’s Land, some weeks before Barbara had taken her in.

The boy had been around her age and surviving on the streets as one of the many lost and forgotten kids after the quake. He’d been a gruesome sight even to her eyes, with parts of his skull caved in directly above his right eye and some of his limbs and his ribcage broken and badly healed, obviously misshapen and hindering his movements. His eyes had been dull and his face underneath the glossy remains of horrible burns slack in eternal apathy.

And yet…

And yet he’d run and fought and stolen and more than pulled his weight, sharing his take and looking after the other kids without ever showing them a sign that he was really aware of them. The other children had crowded close to him in turn, treating him alternatively wary, respectful or as if he was a fragile thing that _they_ should be protecting instead of the other way around. It had been a game and a point of pride for them to get him to emote something, to poke and prod him into reacting in any other way but detached care and explosive violence.

Cass had neither had the heart nor the ability to tell them that underneath the blank mask the boy was silently screaming.

It was one single soundless cry, of torment and fear and pain and horror all mixed up in one. He seemed to scream into the void for _anybody_ to hear and answer him, while on the outside he remained perfectly silent, with nobody the wiser of his suffering.

Nobody but Cass.

They’d sought each other out, somehow, cuddling close in the cold nights and sharing a wordless understanding. Even Cass was never quite sure just how much the boy really registered, but he instinctively seemed to know that she would never hurt him and that she was an ally in his strange private mission to keep these kids alive, even if he could barely take care of himself some days. It was as if he was reading her just as much as she was reading him, and yet…

And yet, he was even more isolated from the rest of the world than she was.

Cass had planned to bring him to Barbara, she remembered. After she herself had been taken in by the kind woman and the gang of kids had found shelter in the last standing church, she’d scoured Gotham high and low for the boy. Cass had been sure that Barbara would be able to find his family, and if not that then that she would know a place for him where he would be safe and well cared for. Maybe Barbara would even know how to stop his screaming.

But Cass couldn’t find him, not matter how thoroughly she searched the ruins and streets and in the end she had to accept that the boy was gone and that another first that she got to experience was ‘failure’.

Still, she could never forget him and now that she was stuck in a world impossible for her to interpret as well, she couldn’t help but think of him again and wish that she was in any shape to start yet another search for the broken boy.

But fact was that right now Cass wasn’t of any use to anybody and she simply couldn’t live with that any longer.

She spared one last glance at her sleeping mentor, the red-headed woman exhausted after yet another long night looking after all her bats and birds, then Cass silently crept out of the Clocktower and into the first light of morning.

She would like to think that she had a plan, or at least the bare bones of one, but the truth was that she had nothing but a location – a word whose letters she had painstakingly copied line for line from a computer screen while nobody else was looking – , hopefully enough money to get her there – but then again Batman was apparently very generous with her allowance, at least that was what Babs had once said with a wry smile – and a name: Lady Shiva, the one woman who might actually be able to help her.

It had been pure happenstance that she had overheard Barbara and Batman talking shortly after she’d lost her skills. They had mentioned Lady Shiva just in passing but what Cass had heard had been enough to catch her interest. She’d been lucky once again just a few days later when Oracle had looked Shiva up and had then been distracted for a while, just long enough for Cass to come to a decision.

And now Cass was on her way to leave Gotham – no, her _home_ – behind to find this mysterious woman and hopefully regain what she had lost.

‘Hope’.  
  
Yet another first.

Cass blinked up into the sun and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, quick question: Whatever was the Court of Owls doing during No Man's Land? I mean, it must be mighty awkward when suddenly your undead pet assassins are without shelter or secret tunnels to skulk around in. Also, just how did they get the secret passages back into all the newly constructed buildings without anybody noticing? ;-)
> 
> Next: Arc II - But hatred is a curved blade.


	3. Arc II – But hatred is a curved blade. - Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time around Lady Shiva isn't "completely coincidentally" in Gotham. Cass finds her anyway. And more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Learn this from me. Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves.” – Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
> 
> The timeline got updated. 
> 
> Still no beta. If you notice any mistakes, let me know please.

Later on Cass would never be able to say how she’d even made it out of Gotham let alone all the way to the other side of the world. It had been easier before, not just because of her unique skill set, but because she had been nothing but a little girl that nobody had been looking for, simply drifting in and out of cities without a definite goal in mind but to survive. But now she was a part of the bats and Batman watched over his little flock with something close to paranoid obsession.

And that didn’t even take the all-knowing Oracle into account.

And yet Cass not only made it out of Gotham but onto various transports, switching from ferries to trains and from cabs to buses, until she finally wound up on a shady smuggler’s plane lifting off in the middle of nowhere. It was a miracle, she knew, with her being mute and half-blind and only armed with a location written on a crumpled piece of paper in a shaky script and a steadily shrinking wad of cash. But she was desperate and determined and tough as nails even when she couldn’t see what her opposites were thinking anymore and in the end she somehow made it.

But Lady Shiva wasn’t there.

+++

If Cass had thought that it was hard to exist in her current state in Gotham under the eyes of the well-meaning bats, it just got that much harder once she was out of that protective shadow – and out of North America. Because apparently there was more than just one language in the world, who knew? Certainly not Cass.

Fortunately she found that if she looked pathetical enough, flailed helplessly and babbled a bit everybody simply assumed that she was a tourist and just didn’t know the local language. For a while, when she’d been in countries where you still heard English almost daily, she had been ‘that Asian girl’. But by now, in the middle of rural China, she had quickly gotten used to being called ‘the American’. She… honestly wasn’t quite sure why it was important where she came from, but the labels helped to excuse many of her social failings and speech impediments, so she learned to play it up early on. Batman probably would have been proud.

Unfortunately by now her luck seemed to have run out, because here she stood on a dirt road in the middle of a small Chinese village – nothing more than a hand full of houses, really – and Lady Shiva was nowhere in sight.

She’d checked the location on her by now very battered looking piece of paper with the young man who had driven her here three times already and if all the nodding and expansive hand gestures were anything to go by, she was at the correct place. Cass had also scoured the whole village from top to bottom – or at least as much as was possible while the curious eyes of every single inhabitant seemed to follow her everywhere – but every woman living here was either too old to be Shiva or too young or had a child running around their feet and not the right kind of calluses or bearing to be a martial artist.

At least Cass thought so – the longer her extraordinary awareness was missing the less certain she felt about anything.

She was trying to decide what to do now, if she should search a bigger area or give up and make her way back to Gotham, when she suddenly noticed that the eyes of the villagers weren’t on her anymore. Instead they all seemed to concentrate on somebody behind her and Cass felt herself instinctively straighten up and turn around.

A woman stood behind her, middle-aged and dark haired and wearing the same style of clothing as every other woman in the village. She wasn’t particularly tall or impressive looking but _maybe_ the colors of her clothes were a bit brighter than any of the others’ and _maybe_ the fabric itself was of a little better quality – but the truth was that Cass was no detective like the bats were because she never before had to pay attention to such things or the understanding that they might even _matter_ and now, without her special kind of perception, she just drew a big, useless blank on the woman.

(For just one moment, Cass felt tears prickle in her eyes. She ruthlessly suppressed them.)

“Lady Shiva?”

She’d spent hours upon hours on practicing these two words until the name flew freely from her lips and even now Cass still felt proud when she spoke it flawlessly. Unfortunately her efforts were wasted.

The woman smiled – Was there something off about it? Something strange around her eyes? – and shook her head, then suddenly bowed low, very low in front of Cass. She said something in her own language that sounded… _important_ somehow? Like a title? Words were so confusing... then she straightened up again and lifted one hand. She pointed first up at the sun, then drew an arc over the sky from horizon to horizon. Next she showed the girl in front of her very deliberately one single finger and then pointed in a seemingly random direction.

“Lady Shiva,” the woman said and there was an awed, almost breathless quality to it that set Cass on edge. She didn’t like it or the intense way the woman was looking at her, even if she couldn’t say what exactly about it spooked her.

“Lady Shiva,” the woman repeated when Cass hesitated and motioned for her to move into the direction she’d pointed to before.

Cass looked at the waiting forest, then up at the bright blue sky, following the sun on its way to the horizon. So, one day in this direction? She looked back down and to her driver and pointed at the forest.

“Lady Shiva?”

The young man nodded energetically and made shooing motions at her. He seemed off now, too, somehow, wide-eyed and pale and staring at her. The whole village was staring now actually and it was… _different_ somehow to before.

Cass would have given a lot for a bit more insight right now. But crippled as she was she could only try to keep her posture straight and not defensively hunch into herself, trying to protect all those vulnerable parts of her.

“Go!” the woman urged now, obviously impatient with her hesitation. “Lady Shiva,” she repeated with emphasis, then suddenly pursed her lips in something even Cass could read as disapproval, “and student.”

+++

It was around noon on the next day that Cass arrived at her final destination. Despite the late hour thick bands of morning fog still crept over the ground and had confused her more than once away from the almost overgrown path. Now it billowed around a single wooden cabin at the entrance to a large clearing, only to fade away once it reached a slightly raised area at the end of it.

Even from where she stood Cass could see that that particular part of the clearing had a man-made look to it. Too flat and the light brown of tightly packed sand instead of the lush green of the plants around her or the darker brown of the topsoil nurturing them.

The makeshift arena was currently in use, two different persons getting clearer the closer Cass came to them. They were both smaller and thinner than a fully grown man and _fast_ in a way that reminded her painfully of the bats. (How long had she been gone by now? She hadn’t really paid attention.) They moved like liquid from place to place, dancing in a way that had made once sense to Cass, and the sounds of their fight echoed halfway through clearing then got finally swallowed up by the dense fog.

And yet, even with her senses muted, Cassandra could clearly see that if this was a dance then only one person was leading.

Lady Shiva was beautiful like a blade, all sharp angles and dangerous curves. She was taller than Cass had expected and had short, dark hair, high, sharply defined cheekbones and brows and a broad, eternally smirking mouth.

There was cruelty in the way she spun around on one foot and snapped a kick to the chest of the boy she was supposedly teaching. Her student choked on his next breath and folded inwards, arms coming up in a futile attempt to protect himself. She ignored his defense and aimed her next kick lower, viciously attacking his vulnerable belly. He choked again, breath coming out in painful coughs and splutters, then Lady Shiva whirled around one last time and used her momentum for a devastating kick against his head that sent him flying.

The boy landed hard and stayed down, the only sign he was still alive the sounds of his harsh, labored breathing.

Cass made a step forward in concern, than froze as those dark, merciless eyes turned to her. She straightened up and bowed low. Lower even than she had seen the woman back in the village do.

“Lady Shiva?”

She waited like that, baring her neck to the biggest predator, but then again even upright she would have been completely defenseless and vulnerable. After all this was the point of this whole exercise.

Cass got rewarded with a snort and a light, airy voice calling out, “See, boy? This is how a proper greeting goes. Maybe you should pay attention and take notes then you will have learnt at least _something_ on this little trip of yours.”

Cass risked a quick glance upwards through her bangs and caught sight of the student slowly getting up on his feet again. Tall, dark-haired and young. Very young by the looks of it. A white stripe plastered against his sweaty forehead and narrowed eyes caught somewhere between blue and green. Not happy, that much was obvious. Not happy about what exactly she couldn’t see. Not anymore.

“Now, girl, what are you doing here? Not many people dare to seek out the great Lady Shiva, if you’d be worth my time I would have come to you. Eventually,” the bright red smirk got even wider somehow.  “And yet you’re already the second intruder wandering into my domain and contrary to this fool over there I have absolutely no obligation to spare you for your insolence.”

“Yes,” Cassandra said. I know, was what she meant.

She bit her lip and stared at the ground because she knew now came the hardest part.

“Help… please. Teach me –,“ every word was a struggle to say. Cass balled her fists so hard it hurt, trying to make her stupid tongue and mouth work.

“Teach you _what_ ,” Lady Shiva stressed and the girl abruptly realized that Shiva _knew_.

Cass straightened up and put some steel into her spine, looking Lady Shiva dead into the eyes.

“To see!”

(Have you been waiting for me?)

The dark brown eyes regarded her for a long, long moment, the bright red smirk still playing around Shiva’s lips like an afterthought. Finally she seemed to have decided.

“Get lost, boy. I have actual training to do.”

Cass kept her eyes locked firmly with Shiva’s but she was still faintly aware of the boy grumbling. He relented when he noticed his complaints falling on deaf ears, his teacher not even bothering to listen to him. She was fully focused on Cass.

“Alright, I’m going! I know when I’m not wanted…” The angry shout sounded vaguely familiar. Not the voice exactly but the way it formed the sounds –

Lady Shiva’s voice broke Cass’ train of thought before it was fully formed.  
“That would be a first…” she murmured and her grin got just the slightest bit meaner. It was vaguely disconcerting that it seemed to become easier and easier to read her.

Shiva waited until her student had made his way back to the cabin, then finally her smile faded into a serious expression. All the while she’d never broken eye contact with Cass.

“I can give you back what you’ve lost. Rather quickly in fact.”

The girl could feel the warm rush of elation in her chest.

“ _But_ there’s a price. One year from now on, we fight. You must use all your skills. Your _killing_ skills,” Shiva emphasized and Cass could feel her own eyes widen and her blood run cold.

“And I’ll use mine. A _death-duel_. As befits warriors.” Cass desperately wished she had more experience reading words and faces because there was something strange to the way Lady Shiva seemed to practically _taste_ these words on her tongue.

The dark brown eyes drilled into Cass’ and gave no quarter. “What is your answer?”

So many thoughts inside her head and yet, in the end the answer seemed to be clear. She was no warrior, at least not in the way Lady Shiva expected her to be, but Cass desperately wanted to be a protector and that she could only be as long as she could protect herself as well.

She could be mediocre for a lifetime. Or perfect for a year.

See, no, _let_ people die, knowing that she was useless. Or save them until she died herself.

It was no question. Not really.

Lady Shiva smiled cruelly, already knowing what she would say.

 “Well?”

+++

The morning sun poured gold over the clearing, turning the ever-present mist into clouds of glittering lights. Cass tried to enjoy the spectacular view in front of her but her thoughts kept drifting back to the previous day and night.

Her body ached all over and her bruises probably had bruises at this point but in the end Lady Shiva had kept her promise and Cass had finally been able to _see_ her movements and intentions again. Not that it would be of any use to her should she and Shiva ever get into a real fight. The older woman was fast and strong and absolutely deadly and like no other opponent Cass had ever faced before.

The girl wasn’t sure if she would be able to win when the time came. But then again, given that winning meant killing, taking yet another life, maybe she didn’t even want to…

Cass felt cold all of sudden, despite the pleasant temperature, and curled into herself. Ever so slowly it was beginning to sink in that from now on she was living on borrowed time.

It was an unfamiliar voice from behind her that finally broke the suddenly stifling silence, young and far too used to being angry, “I hope you’re happy now! Thanks to you, my fucking _teacher_ just ditched me!”

Huh. That was right, wasn’t it? Lady Shiva had vanished without another word right before sunrise. That… wasn’t particular nice. Especially towards her student. Cass couldn’t help but feel vaguely guilty.

“What the hell am I supposed to do now? It’s not as if infamous martial arts masters grow on trees, you know?”

That was true. Cass turned around to offer an apology or maybe her condolences, she didn’t know (Or maybe she was just selfish enough that she simply couldn’t pass up the chance to make sure that her skills were really back now.) –

And froze.

Young man – no, boy – her age, with dark hair apart from a white stripe at the right side of his head. Blue eyes with a greenish tint to them. Tall but probably still growing. Angry expression.

All that she’d already been able to see yesterday. But now…

Trained, and trained well. Good stance, properly alert and ready even if in a very wary and aggressive way. A vaguely unbalanced distribution of weight and a slight hesitance to every movement, as if he wasn’t quite sure where his arms and legs ended yet, hinted at a recent growth spurt. Long limbs, slightly disproportionate, too broad shoulders and an overall thinness in all the wrong places meant that he wasn’t quite done growing yet. Muscular but still working on it, his body still trying to decide where to collect its strength. A narrow face still figuring out its angles with the slightest hints of baby fat softening it here and there. _Burning_ eyes, full of raw emotion, almost daring her to come at him.

And underneath it all: A storm. Countless emotions threatening to burst straight through his skin, whirling and changing in barely leashed confusion, making Cass wonder how he even made sense of what he was feeling. The only thing that seemed to be constant was the unbridled _rage_ suffusing everything.

That, and the oh so familiar silent scream of pain and terror still ringing out into the void and waiting desperately to be heard.

Cass wasn’t sure when she’d stood up or when she’d crossed the distance between them, but suddenly she found herself running, taking one step, two, saw the boy’s arms come up in surprised flailing – too slow –  and then she crashed into his chest and wound her arms firmly around him, refusing to ever let go of him again.

She pressed her nose deep into his clothes and breathed in. He smelled cleaner than before and healthier, too, but the base scent, the scent that was all him and that she remembered from countless nights huddling together for warmth and companionship was still the same.

She smiled. Never before had been words so easy.

 “Found you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the dialogue between Shiva and Cass and Cass’ inner monologue are taken from Batgirl 2000, Issue #9.


End file.
